“I am not in the entertainment business.”

-Jim Lehrer, Host of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer

In the past few years it’s become almost cliché to attack news organizations. Politicians attack news organizations because their coverage isn’t favorable. Non-profits will make charges of bias. Comedians target the theme music TV news will cook up in a matter of hours. News organizations will attack other news organizations because the audience enjoys it when Katie Couric, for example, bashes the rest of the industry.

I’ve been watching the news for a long time. Not as long as some others (there was a time when I was in elementary school), but it’s not hard to draw a few conclusions from coverage today. Here’s what I’ve discovered:

1. Bias is a problem.

On the upside, it’s not as widespread as people might think. Fox News is hopelessly biased and does not practice journalism, but rather thinly veiled editorialization of the news and twisting of facts in order to push their own agenda. Other news organizations suffer from other problems or, at the very least, their bias is driven by something else, such as ratings (see below).

2. TV Networks need good ratings.

This one doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out. News networks are ratings driven and this is where theme music, flashy sets, and reporters who could be models come into play. People watch things by which they are entertained, so if news networks want people to watch the news, they need to make their coverage entertaining. But they will also follow public opinion more carefully than a politician. Few reporters were brave enough to be critical of, or question, the Bush Administration shortly after 9/11 and heading into the Iraq War. Their criticism now only stems from the unpopularity of the Bush Administration.

3. Investigative journalism appears to be a thing of the past.

Once a journalist has a story, it’s rare that they search for the deeper meaning. Maybe it’s just me, but I think investigative journalism is declining. Reporters are becoming well-paid scribes.

4. The ultimate goal of news organizations is not to report the news.

This is a sad but simple truth. News organizations are largely corportations and corporations (at least the for-profit variety) exist to make money. If they can make money by doing the news, then everyone’s happy, but it seems that the big news corpoations (Disney, Viacom, News Corp, etc.) have been turning to entertainment news.

5. These are broad generalizations.

This is not true for every news organization or even every program or service of that organization.

So where do I turn for real news? PBS! I’ve grown up with The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and while I didn’t appreciate it when I was younger I do now. It does not have a bias towards any side ever and it does not try to turn news into entertainment. (See above quote). Because it’s publicly funded, ratings don’t matter. The news is really the news and it’s better than any of the other news networks I’ve ever seen.

I’ve run into several people who say that they just don’t pay attention to the news. It’s everyone’s social responsibility to pay attention to the news! It doesn’t matter if it’s entertaining or not, everyone should be paying attention to the news.